Roufusgate

[REDDzone]

This is threadworthy, and I don't want my usual ranting mmahour posts to get lost in the nonthreadworthy thread because everyone is discussing this.

Original posts from the other thread:

There are a lot of stories coming out now about how Roufusport is really ridiculously rough on some of their students, especially female. One chick who claimed to be a student from there alleged Duke had her spar with heavyweight males who kicked her ass, and he'd do it as well, one time culminating in a soccer kick to the face.

This all started from Rose bad mouthing the coaches on Twitter, which could have been viewed as sour grapes, but she backed herself up with stories from other students like I mentioned.

Actually, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put out an investigative article and video about an incident Roufusport was involved in where one of their students died in an ammy kickboxing bout. I watched it, and it's pretty disgusting. Duke wasn't there, but Cushman was in his corner, and was negligent at best, reckless at worst. All of the officials there were too. It was pretty obvious he was struggling neurologically before the halfway point of the bout, stumbling around uncoordinated like a zombie.

It's really heartbreaking stuff from a # of point of views if the allegations are true, and the death wasn't an honest mistake, or Cushman is just one bad egg from that camp. Obviously it's heartbreaking for all the fighters involved, but also the people who looked up to Duke because he came across as such a nice guy who really cared about his students publicly. They have such a family vibe. I'm still going to support Pettis and a few of the other fighters because they have fun styles and nothing negative has come out about them, just the coaches. But the coaches can piss off and I hope their camp gets shut down, if true.

Whoa, pretty surprised by all that. I'm almost positive that Rose goes back to train at roufusport when she comes home to Milwaukee to visit family, etc. Weird, given what is coming out now. Wonder if some tuf experience, or this kickboxing death, broke the camel's back somehow...

Woah.

But I have to say, it's a thin-line in most gyms between toughening experiences and abuse. MFS, Chute Boxe...these gyms dominated because of what we would now say is total negligence of their fighter's health. Effed up things happened in those gyms for years in the early days. And outright abusive episodes (MFS for sure...).

I'm not going to watch the video of the kid dying in the kickboxing ring. That's messed-up.

Roufus came across good-natured but a psycho in that Rogan interview. Not the appropriate reactions to people getting hurt.

I'm biased here, but I'd say RoufusSport's crime is being too competitive. If you don't allow women to train with men you're going to be called sexist. According to Pat Barry the first time he met Rose they were about to spar and she hit him in the head repeatedly. These girls say they want to spar with guys and for them to not hold back, and it's very good training for them. Is Nate Diaz supposed to hold back when rolling with Ronda?

As for a fighter dying in the cage, that's negligence on the ref's part.

I'll have to look more into these stories. I just know that being "tough" on females can get called sexism when you're also tough on males. My brother was on the Northwestern debate team, and there was a documentary called "fast talk." I wouldn't recommend you watch it, but one of the things they did was shoot water guns at debaters during their speeches in order to toughen them up. A girl had a problem and quit and they tried to make it seem like the debate community was sexist.

The year the documentary came out, 2 females won the National Debate Tournament for the first time, there are tons of female debate coaches in prominent positions, and people will lose a round if they say anything sexist. So when my brother is being sprayed with a water gun while talking that's good coaching that toughens him up, but when they do the same thing to a girl they're sexist and cruel? If you treat men and women equally when they're being asked to be treated as equals, then it's hard to call them sexist.

Sorry for the rant but the entire documentary was a criticism of college debate by someone who didn't understand it, and focused only on the negatives, when college debate has a ton of positives for the participants. That girl now works for a think tank, which was her dream job.

[REDDzone]

Lots and lots of discussion about this in local circles. 100% of the negative comments that I have seen (and there have been a ton) have been in regards to CUSHMAN as opposed to Duke.

"He was always been a bully and a bad coach"
"Not surprised, its the culture over there, Cushman's training has always been questionable"

I know another guy who used to run a fight team and he was saying how he would never let his guys fight in duke's promotion because you couldn't trust them.

[REDDzone]

As for a fighter dying in the cage, that's negligence on the ref's part.

He didn't die in the cage/ring, did you watch the video or read the article? Lots and lots of questionable decisions from letting him fight on to the doctor not giving him oxygen right away to not following medical protocol (the doctor was a roufusport teammate of his btw) to taking him to the wrong f*cking hospital...

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchd ... 84622.html

[REDDzone]

As I eluded to earlier, Rose has visited roufusport and I just read on the UG that she visited there prior to tuf because she thought if she did so they would pick her first on the reality show.

So you wanted them to pick you despite them supposedly abusing you? Makes this seem a little bit more like sour grapes to me, at least the specific stuff coming from her.

edit: to be fair to her she says if she would have known about the Derrick Munsen (sp?) incident, she wouldn't have went back.

[NZB2323]

As for a fighter dying in the cage, that's negligence on the ref's part.

He didn't die in the cage/ring, did you watch the video or read the article? Lots and lots of questionable decisions from letting him fight on to the doctor not giving him oxygen right away to not following medical protocol (the doctor was a roufusport teammate of his btw) to taking him to the wrong f*cking hospital...

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchd ... 84622.html

I just read the article. That's horrible.

All that I can speak to is my experience. I spent 3 months training there, was never promoted above white belt, and was never allowed to spar. They seemed like a cautious gym to me, but I understand that there are different locations and different coaches.

EDIT: I wanted to elaborate more on the Rose story. From my understanding she says they were too hard on females. According to Pat Barry he first met her when they were supposed to spar together. He was putting his gloves on, saying he'll take it easy on her when she punched him in the head. He said alright let's go and she punched him in the head again and then he was like, "Oh my God, I love you."

I don't know if he's exaggerating to make the story funny, or if her coaches told her to attack them, but it seems hypocritical for a female to deliver head shots while a guy is getting ready and then claim the guys are too hard on her.

[Bernman]

Going back to my evaluation of what happened on the video, I was harsh on all those who had the responsibility of using their discretion to protect the fighter, but I will say Munson didn't take that much damage to the head relative to other fights I've seen. The weight cutting must have played a huge part in this. On the surface his neurological symptoms could have maybe been misinterpreted as a combination of exhaustion, blows from leg kicks of which there were many, and a lack of will by a debutante.

That said, they should have been investigating more than on the surface, especially the doctor. That's basically his only job. The ref and corner are equipped to detect the less obvious things. But the doctor is playing on his phone during the fight?!?! Wow, if he's not banned by commissions and promotions at least, that's absurd.

And on some level it still comes back to Roufusport because from my understanding they are the commission/promotion here. That should never happen because it's a clear conflict of interest in a number of ways (gear their decisions toward that gym's fighter winning, the promotion could hire people who are cheap to cut costs, etc.), but unfortunately it happens in MMA with so many matches going on at a time but only so many commissioned officials to choose from. The only solution is for fighters to not compete in those events to protect themselves from corruption or negligence.

As far as the timing of Rose going public and her still wanting Roufusport to pick her, the explanation for her part could be she has an axe to grind. The problem is there are a lot of people who have an axe to grind with Roufusport. That's not a good sign for them.

[REDDzone]

There are so many discussion points from this situation, that is why I thought it was so threadworthy:

1) The conflict of interest inherent in a promoter working as the commission, this is super prevalent.
2) Kickboxing not being regulated in the state of WI.
3) How people train in certain gyms. Please believe me when I say I couldn't care less about roufusport, seriously. But if anyone thinks this type of treatment is in anyway unique to them...lol.
4) Weight cutting.
5) Honestly, are we hypocritical here? Hindsight is 20/20. I personally couldn't finish the video, too morbid. But from what I was saw he was swaying around, etc. Could have been exhaustion or damage or whatever. For people to watch that and say it should have been stopped or that they would have stopped it, are these the same people who are going crazy watching Frankie Edgar return from getting 10 years knocked off his life by Gray Maynard in their second fight? Should that one have been stopped as well for example? Was it the Manny/Mosley boxing match where Manny effed up Mosley pretty bad and Mosley was asking his corner to stop the fight? They said no and pushed him back in there, I even remember people on forums afterward saying Mosley should thank his corner for that. As I said, this is prevalent across lots of sports and lots of situations. The only difference is in most cases, the end result isn't death for the combatant.

[NZB2323]

Redd, I completely agree on the last point. Have you guys heard the story on the DEA inspecting NFL lockerrooms this weekend? It's related to a suit by players claiming they were given pain medications when injured to go back into the game. At least we know that that isn't happening in the UFC.

[REDDzone]

I know this stuff varies by state, but does anyone know what the general protocol is for amateur mma/kickboxing/boxing is in terms of pre-fight medicals? Let's say this dude had some pre-existing clot or internal bleeding or something. Would that have been found in an amateur fight were kickboxing regulated in WI? Or are amateur fights not held to the same scrutiny?

[Susan]

RZ, didn't Scott come from there?

[REDDzone]

RZ, didn't Scott come from there?

Yessir. For reference for others, my coach used to coach at roufusport. Granted, that was 5 years ago and he was there for less than a year. But he still has a good relationship with those guys as far as I know, even coaching and cornering Anthony within his ufc stint. I really don't think this situation extends to the grappling side at all though. I know Omar and he seems like a level headed dude to me. Most of the issues seem to come from Cushman who is the head kickboxing coach and even from Duke himself.

But in terms of Scott being there, so was Red. Seems all the guys who are good or who have their own schools now used to be there. Its a small community even today, and was even smaller ~5 years ago. That is why I plan on trying to get some dirt later this week.

[REDDzone]

Erikkoch - The thing about this is rose came to our gym this year to train. She got kicked off the mat for hitting someone after the bell rung.... Hmmmm

Erikkoch -She also says when she left she felt as if she didn't need to say goodbye because she didn't care for anybody, but then thinks it's disrespectful that duke and Anthony didn't pick her first on the show? Am I the only one that sees these inconsistency's?

[REDDzone]

Eric Schafer - Duke Roufus is a bully, a liar, and one of the worst people I have ever met. I have never been in a more toxic environment than when I was the head grappling coach and fighter at the gym. I saw teammate after teammate getting treated like ****. Guys being told to beat up lower level guys that were just trying to help out, UFC fighters being told to beat up other UFC level fighters so they would not come back, verbal abuse, violence, guys getting lied to about fights, etc. I have messages and conversations with almost everyone of his fighters from my days there; from his UFC stars to his coaching staff about how much they were mistreated. I will not out them, but they know the truth. They can tell their tales if they want.

When I started there I was new to the UFC, and it was purely a kickboxing gym. I was looking to round out my game. I soon joined as the head grappling coach and we started the MMA team. You could say that I was 2nd in command at the time. I was there when Pettis walked in the door, and when Pat Barry moved to Milwaukee to switch to MMA. I have met some of my best friends there and the family was very strong, despite the captain of the ship being horrible. After seeing countless members of my "family" get screwed over, I finally called it quits after he finally betrayed me directly after being there for over 3 years. Sometimes I wish I had the strength to stand up to him at the time, but it almost feels like I was one of the kids in a family of abuse. I would rather run away than stand up to my violent dad.

I left without telling anyone my plans, but I started my own gym a few months later. I never recruited anyone to follow me, but I just wanted out of the negativity. Many of the guys followed me when they found out or left eventually to other places after they got screwed. I don't claim to be a great fighter or anything, and don't care if I ever am as famous as him or his guys... but I am much more happy. Maybe I am just a pussy or something, like I am sure he will claim anyone who says anything about him, but I could care less. I was never a world champion and had my weaknesses in the cage, but I dare you to ever say I quit in the gym no matter who I was sparring. It was not the "hard" training that was bad, it was something much worse. Not every fighter was treated horribly, but I am sure that every fighter and coach from 2007 to 2010 has been screwed over at least once, whether they will admit it or not.

I am happy with my young and happy gym. I have blocked him from my life. I was offered a fight on his card and told my manager that "I personally would not ever fight for him", so a when a few of my young fighters were scheduled to fight on his show (which I did not like, but he is the big local promoter), he decided to cancel their fights 2 weeks before the event. He wrote me a letter (which I kept) saying they were not welcome, because I did not respect him. I said that I actually understand that, but I wish he wouldn't have scheduled them in the first place and screwed them over. A year later the matchmaker came out and asked for forgiveness and said that we can at least have a business relationship. I said I didn't trust Duke, but the other coaches wanted our guys on the card, I reluctantly agreed. Once again, he cancelled our fights a few weeks before to spite me. Oh well...

The sad thing is that this poor kid had to die before we started hearing any of these stories. What happened to this poor kid is a separate issue in my opinion...

Duke responds: http://mmajunkie.com/2014/11/duke-roufu ... s-chime-in

[cowboyronnie]

I know this stuff varies by state, but does anyone know what the general protocol is for amateur mma/kickboxing/boxing is in terms of pre-fight medicals? Let's say this dude had some pre-existing clot or internal bleeding or something. Would that have been found in an amateur fight were kickboxing regulated in WI? Or are amateur fights not held to the same scrutiny?

Definitely no neuro or bloodwork. A note from a GP at the beginning of every year and a 3 minute examination before the fight. In ON, it doesn't even have to be your GP. Gyms here will actually host a GP first week of January who will whip through the 8 minute examinations for $50 and sign your forms. The only diagnostic in ON is a chem-strip urine test for proteins in your pee. It's pretty crazy. That said, amateur fights ought to be stopped upon blood and head-turning shots.

[REDDzone]

Askren gave his thoughts, basically saying what a lot of others have said. When Red/Barry/Rose were there, they were sparring 4 days a week, sounds a lot to me like the Holland kickboxing mentality.

Askren, Koch, Duke have all said they only spar once a week now and things have changed since then. Who knows what is true and what isn't. I do believe them when they say things have changed though. Just anecdotally from what I have heard, it seems like a lot of gyms have changed in the last 5-10 years in terms of cleaning up how much sparring they do, etc.